Color choices are intentional

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Salesforce has an easy-to-use, yet sophisticated color system that helps designers find consistency, continuity, and meaning with their color selections. The Salesforce color system within the Lightning Design System also simplifies meeting color contrast accessibility requirements in an intuitive way. These principles extend from our work to develop a color system.


Color conveys both conscious and unconscious meaning, so intentionality is crucial to helping users build color associations. For example, red is commonly associated with errors in Western cultures or in stoplights. So, using red in the user interface (UI) for an “Accept” button would cause hesitation and confusion. Color engineer data choice is also intentionally cohesive. Choose colors as part of the greater whole, so that no one decision operates alone. This is called color continuity, and it’s the backbone of how users associate color within an experience. If you maintain continuity, your use of color carries itself within and across any experience.

Brand button
For example, we use blue for our buttons and links so our users associate the color with interactive elements. In the Salesforce experience, that color drives action. These decisions become learned behaviors within our design color system, and they support conscious and subconscious navigation. Ideally, users can understand meaning just by glancing at a UI object.